[bobthepanda]

The deficit hawks have routinely included legislation that included automatic ways to reduce the US deficit to be implemented at a future point in time, when hopefully Congress has sorted out whether or not such a thing is actually desirable. It's essentially a budget Sword of Damocles.

Of course, Congressional budget negotiations have been an unproductive circus show for a while, so this never actually happened and the thing that was never actually intended to go in place went in effect. With the current razor-thin majority in the House constantly getting derailed over budget negotiations, this is unlikely to resolve any time soon.

[curtis3389]

If they set it in motion and say they'll stop it before it causes pain, they have no intention of stopping it. Sequestration in 2013 was a solution to a political problem. Nobody wants to be blamed.

[bobthepanda]

This particular set of regulations was from the Trump tax cuts, which were passed by reconciliation and had to be "budget neutral" as a result.

[bcrosby95]

Achieving budget neutrality with a policy that won't come into effect for 5 years, that people expect to be negated, is an "interesting" hack.

[fauntle]

...and that will come to fruition during a subsequent administration. It was one of the many time bombs set up to make the opposing party look worse come election time.

[ojbyrne]

As I understand it, it's because they could pass "temporary" tax cuts with only 51% in the Senate through the "budget reconciliation process. The Republicans at the time did not have the 60 votes necessary to defeat a filibuster. Not quite the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Cuts_and_Jobs_Act

[bobthepanda]

There hasn’t been 60 votes for a long time. Reconciliation is how a lot of normal legislation is passed.